FC Santa Clarita
The United Premier Soccer League (UPSL) announced a new member, FC Santa Clarita, will be joining the Northwest Conference this season. FC Santa Clarita is set to start play with the 2015 Summer UPSL season, future Admiral Cups and beyond.
The team’s colors are black, white, and red as the club sports an emblem that represents them proudly, a bowl-shaped design, in which the team initials F.C.S.C appear inside the top of the design. Above a soccer ball that has a sash across it reading “Dare to Dream, Dare to Try, Dare to Fail, Dare to Succeed”. The base background inside the design is black and red bars with a red border. This creation honors the foundation of the clubs roots as well as its connection to its city a growing soccer Mecca.
Leading the men on the field will be head coach Martín Rubio for the club’s inaugural UPSL season. “Our style of play will be a strong defense, with a quick transitional offense using our youthfulness mixed with composure” said Rubio who will deploy a 4-4-2 formation to start the season. FC Santa Clarita has a dynamic duo of strikers in Andres Zalamea and Phil Denmark leading the attacking for the side. Lalo Medina will play an attacking midfielder role after showing a scoring prowess to end their last season.
FC Santa Clarita will kick off a new tradition when they participate in the Santa Clarita Darby against the Santa Clarita Storm a meeting of two local teams. To add to the intrigue will be Denmark and Medina who played for the Storm last season in the NPSL. This surly will be an instant exciting match as both clubs are stadium partners sharing the same venue, practice grounds, general manager and owner only leading to a rivalry for wins and fans as both clubs look for independent identities while growing and starting their respective legacy’s in the UPSL.
Yan Skwara, UPSL Commissioner stated, “We are very excited to have FC Santa Clarita participate in the Northwest Conference as they will be a competitive club. FC Santa Clarita has been working hard on building and promoting soccer in the Santa Clarita Valley and becoming a member of the UPSL will only enhance their efforts.”
Malik Basurto, FC Santa Clarita General Manager is excited by the clubs rapid growth and exciting future in the UPSL. “We have always thought FC Santa Clarita brought a high level of play to the field as they display the beautiful game for our fans in Santa Clarita. This will be a great opportunity for the team to test their supremacy going forward” said Basurto. “It will be a special day and the result of a ton of hard work so my calendar is marked for the Santa Clarita Darby against the Storm to find out who is soccer king of Santa Clarita and then hopefully both sides on to the playoffs where both look to hoist their first trophy of many.”
